


the sky is laced with fitful red (... the dawn is rising from the sea).

by flustraaa



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bisexual Disaster Sokka (Avatar), Falling In Love, Fluff without Plot, Idiots in Love, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Oblivious Sokka (Avatar), Oblivious Zuko (Avatar), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sokka (Avatar)-centric, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, no beta we die like jet, ungodly amounts of literary references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:26:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28560540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flustraaa/pseuds/flustraaa
Summary: itaque... zuko turns the word on his tongue. itaque. and so. therefore. as the time passes, so will his feelings. or maybe he’ll drown in them, the same way he drowns in sokka’s eyes as they fall asleep.(or the one where they’re idiots and pinning to a painful extent).
Relationships: Sokka & The Gaang (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 96





	the sky is laced with fitful red (... the dawn is rising from the sea).

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from impression by oscar wilde bc the author is a whore for oscar wilde. and rightfully so.

Zuko doesn’t quite realise he’s falling in love until he’s too far gone, and it’s only when he thinks back that he can begin to identify the little strokes that made the final one so bold.

It’s one little trip off of the ledge, before he tips from where he’s dangled— teetering precariously upon the cusps of his own oblivion before he falls into a chasm.

It’s three months after he became one of their’s, three months before he realises that he’s never really seen colour in the way he does when he’s around Sokka— that his stomach had never felt this full, not even when his mom snuck him into the kitchen and partnered with Kaori to make Manjū for the first time.

He’s never felt so content to just exist— no, he’s never felt like so little of a burden. Every time Sokka would grin, it felt like they’d won the war all over again.

Every time Sokka would laugh, it was like finding his mother again.

Every touch, every croon, every drunken waltz, the tact, touch, love, poetry— the plans and every meeting, every greeting— every single moment between.

Zuko falls in love at the air temple, and again at the boiling rock, and again when he wakes with electricity still crackling through him— soft blue eyes, cool as the ocean to combat it. He falls in love a little more every day after that, too.

He falls in love with Sokka’s endless bag of shitty jokes, the snores that fill the gardens when they fall asleep under the stars— swearing to Suki and Ty Lee in the morning that they’re just friends.

When Zuko pretends that he doesn’t hear Suki tell Ty Lee that friends don’t look at each other the way he and Sokka do, that they don’t touch the way he and Sokka do— that friends don’t exist in the capacity that he and Sokka do.

But he swallows it, like the taste of fresh water in a scorching desert— like the feeling of Sokka’s arms after he hears Zuko’s screams in a nightmare.

Zuko never asks how Sokka knows what’s happening before the guards do— how he can running weapon less and in bleary disarray at worst nightmare that had haunted his dreams in years.

“I dreamt of you,” Sokka mumbles into his skin one morning, rousing as the Fire Lord begins to take a familiar position of mediation. 

He’s not quite awake, and maybe— just maybe, that’s why Zuko allows himself to drown in the Water Tribe boy’s words. Maybe, that’s why he allows himself to hope— as if it is not a delicate thing with wings.

Hope always threatens to flee, and it certainly has not hesitated to act upon that threat when it comes to Zuko.

“You dreamt of me?” Zuko echos, a delicate smile painting itself across the features marred by lifetime of agony, “why... what did you dream?”

“ _You_.” Sokka repeats, as if it’s the clearest thing the world. “ _All_ of _you_.”

His face is smushed against Zuko’s now empty pillow, without a singular doubt, he’s coating the stolen item in the scent of sandalwood and lavender— mingling with the scent of Zuko’s own jasmine and rose.

_I miss you_ , the motion declares— and Zuko can’t bring himself to look away as Sokka’s sleep heavy arms wrap around his friend’s pillow like a lifeline.

“Okay,” Zuko finds himself whispering to the now snoring man, but what he doesn’t say: _thinking of me is no longer just a thought to you. I occupy your mind, even in sleep— even when it isn’t done actively._

He takes a deep breath, letting the sun cloak him sweetly and unapologetically as it rises— and soon Sokka joins him.

Belatedly, he wonders if Sokka knows. If he loves and is loved— and if he, like Zuko, feels both sides of the sun.

* * *

He’s nineteen, and Kiyi is dangling off of Zuko’s shoulders like a winged koala monkey from a banana tree. She’s seen his fire— she’s seen his scar, and somehow she doesn’t see it at all.

Instead she sees her big brother, who’s only half her blood but fully willing to drop his Lordly duties to show her how to breathe purple fire.

Sokka is eighteen, and falling in love.

He catches Zuko’s eye in the middle of an very giggly round of ring around the rosie, and just as the cherry blossom blooms every year— the Fire Lord’s cheeks flare a careful crimson.

Sokka falls in love the way you read a book— cover to cover, and then going back to find the hidden meanings that no one every bothered looking for before.

He remembers how Zuko told him that this week would not be ideal— that it was a stressful week and he would not be any fun to be around.

Sokka only rolled his eyes, tracing the imperial penmanship before hauling his well-worn travel bag over his shoulder.

What he had not expected, was to see Zuko in a disarray far worse than when he’d been struck down by Azula’s lightening.

What he had not expected, was to find his best friend standing at the window of his office, gripping the back of his chair with his head buried in his elbows as he stood stock still. 

What he had not expected was to see a white knuckled grip on the back of the worn leather, what he had not expected was to see Zuko’s knees buckle beneath him from the weight of whatever he’d seen.

What he hadn’t expected was for his stomach to lurch, and for his appetite to drain as he scurried around the side of the desk to make sure his other half was still breathing.

He hadn’t expected to sit with his back pressed to the bookshelf in Zuko’s office as the Fire Lord— as this teenager curled into himself and whispered the words that had gone stale on his tongue years ago.

What he hadn’t expected was for Zuko to come out of it with tears streaming down his cheeks. To scramble into Sokka’s arms as he finally broke, for what felt like the first time in front of him.

What he hadn’t expected, was to realise that he’d been in love with Zuko for so much longer than he’d cared to admit.

But Sokka’s never really been good at holding onto things— even boomerang left him in time.

So he swallows down the words, and hopes that if Zuko loves him back— that the soft circles that the young swordsman traces all along friend’s spine will tell him the three silent words he’d never dare to speak around. 

* * *

A year later, Zuko will wake to tears on more than just Sokka’s cheeks— he will wake to careful words and soft declarations of admiration from his friends— and from his people.

He will wake to Sokka sound asleep against his side, half moons hung below cerulean blue like Yue had never left him— like she’d imprinted upon him all the nights he’d spent awake with her.

He will wake to Sokka’s hesitant words— three gingerly spoken words, eight letters on inconsistencies that may not be nearly as inconsistent as Zuko assumed them to be. 

“I love you,” he states, no room for error, “in a way that I didn’t know I needed to tell you until yesterday. You don’t have to say it back, I just couldn’t live with myself if either of us—“ 

“ _Don’t_ ,” Zuko whispers, and something breaks in his friend. Bright eyes dim, and a proud chin dips with utter despair. “I’m not going anywhere— you’re not going anywhere. I love you.”

And like a moth to the flame, lips meet— all to soft for the words being shared with the breaths the fill the spaces between.

In a week Zuko will be better, just in time for the fire-lilies to bloom and Sokka will sit for him just beside the turtle-duck pond.

(“We’ve been blind, haven’t we?” Zuko will ask, aureate pools of honey so painfully warm and kind.

Sokka will snort, lacing their fingers together where the warmth of the words struggle to reach, “even Toph knew, I think we’re just stupid.”). 

**Author's Note:**

> i never claimed to be good at writing. actually, im pretty sure this is word vomit. real talk i’ll probably be mia from updating fics for a few days bc i have a {insert class} test and i don’t want to fail it.


End file.
